A funny, if slight, documentary.

The movie’s biggest strength is that it’s not too deep. It's visually stunning but is ultimately empty calories.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is everything you want in a movie: the fight scenes are bloody and exciting, the dialogue is tongue-in-cheek, every joke landed, and not one actor felt out of place.

Even with the revolving door of characters and plot developments, there are some laughs in Almost Christmas.

The many battle sequences, though carefully detailed, are lacking in energy and originality. There is some ambition here, but the results fall short.

Cloud Atlas is ambitious in nature, epic in scope and, ultimately, a big, overstuffed mess. [24 Oct 2012]

Hitchcock is, well, fun. More fun than good, really. It feels weird to call it a disappointment, because it is entertaining. But you can't help feeling a little shortchanged on the deep-thinking front.

It seems hollow, somehow false, even by its own campy standards.

The problems with the narrative begin early. [Review of re-release]

It is intended for an audience that is willing to take a journey without knowing the destination.

The film whirs along with such entertaining efficiency that you may not realize that, by the end, it has shifted its blame in a manner that does not exactly betray a lack of courage in its convictions, but a willingness to let some of the bad guys off the hook.

Patel does a masterful job of portraying the inner turmoil that comes with a musician having found the fame he thought he always wanted while knowing he's living a lie. And he's great in the musical numbers, which do their best to sound like someone capturing the spirit of those Beatles songs from memory.

There are some good ideas in there, even timely. But eventually, like everything else in the movie, they’re washed away in a sea of blood and a hail of bullets.

What the movie needs is a more coherent story. While keeping an audience off-kilter and disoriented is a worthy goal, particularly in a horror film, it’s got to add up to something. In this case it’s more like meandering.

Wendy is not glossy by any means but it feels like an escape from the soulless live-action Disney remakes audiences have become accustomed to.

Not that inarticulate characters can't be compelling if they are written with subtlety, acted with insight and, most of all, framed by a directorial vision, but Hellion, despite a promising debut from Wiggins, falls short in at least two of the above.

The interviews throughout are the best part of the movie - the least heavy-handed, yet most effective, element. There is a message here of the necessity for tolerance, but 8: The Mormon Proposition would have been better had its makers presented it in a more consistent, artful fashion.

Wahlberg and Washington are so good together, quips flying as fast as lead, that much is forgiven.

It’s not as good, nor as involving, as “Love Actually.” But like that film, it has Bill Nighy, and that’s good for something.

It's hard to know whether to take it to task as a film critic or as a dance critic. It isn't that it fails on either level - it's a serviceable movie - but it neither attempts nor achieves much of value.

Statham probably isn't going to be doing Shakespeare anytime soon. But everybody ought to be good at something, and when it comes to this kind of thing, Statham is very good, indeed.

A scary fun-house ride that expertly blends jittery tension and laugh-out-loud humor.

This is grasping at something, or really at everything, everywhere, all the time. It feels like a bunch of unfinished ideas, despite the lengthy gestation period.

There's comfort food and there are comfort movies. In Lasse Hallstrom's The Hundred-Foot Journey, you get a full helping of both. And guess what? It's all very comforting.

There is the occasional cool visual and clever world-building detail, like jellyfish couture and eye-popping underwater physics, but Aquaman never fully commits to its lunacy.

To say Violent Night isn’t for everyone overstates the obvious. But if you’re looking for a bracing antidote to Hallmark Christmas movie treacle overload, it’s a holiday treat.

You can't get close to Bennett — not because he's a morally ambiguous character, as the movie would have you believe, but because he never puts anything on the table. He struts through every consequence, a man with nothing to lose because he never had anything worth losing in the first place.

There aren’t enough scares to keep you on edge in Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, but there’s enough else going on to keep you interested.

Logic devolves, cameos abound — there are two that are truly inspired, one of which involves legendary recasting — and lessons are learned.

There are some funny bits and a welcome shot of new blood, but there’s not a lot of overwhelming evidence for this movie’s need to exist.

The jokes only make up for the pedestrian plot for so long. There was a time when animated fare with generic stories sufficed. But now we expect more from them, because they have, pardon the pun, evolved. The Croods, like its title family, hasn’t.

The characters are clichés and the plot is assembly-line predictable.

As a film, it’s like science fiction, a visit to Planet Obscenely Wealthy. It is weirdly compelling.

Zwick can't seem to decide what the movie is - a refreshingly frank comedy about sex and commitment, or a more-serious look at illness and its effect on relationships.

The case is a gut punch to the American dream, and yet Little Pink House is a tepid viewing experience, in part because it rarely invites us into these homes so we can lament their loss.

The cast is uniformly outstanding, a pleasure to watch. It's a more toned-down role for the often-fiery McAvoy, and it suits him.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie is a worthwhile entry into this growing universe, expanding it but not really evolving it. It’s fun, but not especially memorable.

The First Time sets out to be the thinking kids' teen sex comedy but misses the mark by failing its characters. [18 Oct 2012]

I like the glitter. And I like The Prom in a general kind of way. It’s just not the show-stopper it might have been.

Despite minor hiccups, it really comes down to an entertaining time with no worries — er, "Hakuna Matata."

The animation is clean and colorful, and punchlines hit their mark with adults and children under director Chris Renaud's guidance for a second time. But they also heavily hit audiences with action from three loosely tied story lines, making many "meanwhile" breaks between stories. It is a movie for kids, after all.

Though it's certainly well-acted, the quiet film is a retread of familiar recent dramas about doomed heroines like in "Still Alice." But this version prompted me to look up one-way flights to Portugal instead of weeping about a character's looming destiny.

It's ultimately Parks who carries Tusk, and carries it farther than it should have gone.

Barber uses various stylistic devices - hand-held cameras, cellphone cameras, etc. - that make a somewhat slow story seem to move at a brisker pace.

Both Garrel and Martin are good. And it’s important to note that Hazanavicius is quite adept at the comedic bits, as well as at the occasional more-serious scenes, which deal with the disintegration of the marriage. The problem is his inability to merge the disparate tones.

It’s so ridiculously overstuffed it’s kind of fun. That extends to, or perhaps begins with, the look of the film. It’s rich, overripe, yet still kind of seedy.

You hate to see a good cast wasted, but when it comes to 5 Flights Up, the verdict is: no sale.

Song to Song isn’t the sleepy disappointment Malick’s last two films were, but it’s hard not to wish he’d wake up.

Ultimately it’s a sympathetic portrayal. Yes, people called her a clown, but The Eyes of Tammy Faye shows her as someone more complicated and much more interesting.

Despite the bumpy ride, the final destination reveals a weirdly daring comedy with the familiar, but still necessary, lesson that being popular isn't all it's made out to be in the movies.

Old Goats is a nice little slice of life, even if it’s a (partly) fictional one.

His (Borte) film would have been much better had it stuck to its guns as social commentary and not lapsed into a predictable, and predictably lame, love story.

It's not often anymore that you find a film everyone in the family can enjoy, but The Adam Project is that and more. Think "Guardians of the Galaxy" vibes, but a little more low-key.

For all its energy, razzle-dazzle and whiz-bang technology, it doesn't know how to tell a simple story or cobble together three-dimensional characters, and that's a problem not even the best of 3-D glasses can fix.

Massaging the facts to pump up the drama is a necessary evil in a film like this, but The 33’s cinematic beats are so familiar that they undercut the sense of realism that would make it more compelling.

The acting is really good, particularly Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby. But boy, with a running time of nearly 21/2 hours and a near-constant bombardment of visual overstimulation, it’s exhausting.

I admire what Gyllenhaal attempts in The Bride! I was less satisfied with the execution.

One of the joys of a good Brian De Palma film is his willingness to go over the top. In a film that isn’t so good, that excess becomes a lot less enjoyable. And Passion isn’t so good.

Representing the 78-year-old writer and director at his perfunctory worst, Magic in the Moonlight is an unfunny, unromantic comedy.

Mira Nair has crafted a handsome but clubfooted film that lurches through predictable hot spots. It most disappoints as a thriller, the flashbacks and voiceovers and romantic entanglements so dominating the proceedings you forget that someone is bound and gagged in real time.

As cultural criticism, this commentary on life in the age of TMZ and the "Real Housewives" is hardly insightful, but it is executed to dizzying, Fellini-esque perfection, a miniature masterpiece amidst more modest amusements.

The problem with V/H/S, a compilation of sometimes scary horror shorts loosely bound by an overarching plot, is that, no matter how savage, evil or sadistic the killer, the victims almost always come off as bigger jerks.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty just doesn’t work.

This is an incredibly creative film, but, unlike other Gondry films such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the documentary "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?" it doesn't add up to much.

Part of the problem is that, in trying to convey the chaos of abject fear, Espinosa makes it hard to figure out the architecture of the ship, so we don’t know where anyone’s running.

There’s nothing in Thor: The Dark World that wasn’t done better in “Thor,” or a lot better in “The Avengers.” Except Tom Hiddleston’s performance as Loki.

Kosinski never manages full control of the film’s tone, which is essential in a story like this.

If you’re looking for a brisk, compelling story, maybe not. It’s as if there is a third version of this film, something in between the two in terms of tone and fan service, that would be the best way to tell this story. That’s unlikely to happen, of course. How many “Justice League” movies do we really need, anyway?

Joe Bell is a well-meaning film with a gripping story it can’t quite figure out how to tell.

Cobham-Hervey's breathtaking performance elevates the whole endeavor, capturing the heart of what made Reddy so deserving of the winning tribute Moon has given her with I Am Woman. It's in Cobham-Hervey's understatement that we truly hear this woman roar.

Jersey Boys is a good movie, and the performances are first-rate. But Eastwood should have roughed things up a little more.

The film itself begins to feel like Gray, a pretty bird in a gilded cage with nowhere to fly.

This is a talented cast working for a talented director in a film that never reaches the heights it should have.

Sparkle is pure melodrama, but it's a high-powered, well-acted, entertaining melodrama. You may not always believe it, but you won't be bored.

Helped by good performances from Edgar Ramirez as Duran, Usher Raymond as Leonard and Robert De Niro as Duran’s trainer, Ray Arcel, the film chugs along well enough, but never rises close to boxing films like “Raging Bull” (few films do) or “Creed.”

Goodbye Christopher Robin is an emotionally layered story about failures in parenting that gave rise to one of our most enduring joys.

Nicolai Fuglsig’s film does a nice job of capturing the fish-out-of-water nature of the American combatants. Chris Hemsworth is suitably heroic and Michael Shannon suitably intense. But if this movie was the only context you had for the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks, you’d walk out of the theater thinking that we won a quick war without suffering any casualties, that American gusto and bravery saved the day.

There are quite a few genuine laughs along the way. Director Ken Marino has a firm hand with big, silly slapstick, but he also knows how to make the most of dialogue.

The best of the lot. It's not great, but the mean-spiritedness that permeated the first film and stuck around a bit for the second is mostly gone.

You know what you’re getting when you walk into this film. And it delivers exactly that. Lots of gunfights, ridiculous stunts (with some killer drone camera work), and just enough emotional pull to give this movie some substance — although not much.

The incongruity is shocking at first but wears off after a while, making Strays a good and funny bet for stumbling over while channel-surfing (or whatever the streaming version of that is), but not a lot more.

It’s not a bad movie, by any means. Just repetitive in its relentless praise.

LBJ, Rob Reiner's film, benefits greatly from an absolutely all-in performance by Woody Harrelson as the former president. But it also benefits from the current president, or at least the current administration.

As with most prequels, there's ultimately not a lot of suspense, since we know what's going to happen in the next installments. Tell us something something to care about.

It's a movie as warm and fuzzy as a comfortable blanket, and as safe as the milk Edwards prefers to anything stronger. Not as exciting, perhaps, but it gets the job done well enough.

It’s great that Moxie addresses so many issues, but this is a story that might have been told more effectively in a series. Ultimately though, it has powerful moments and it’s hard to complain too much about anything that introduces zines, Bikini Kill and the riot grrrl movement to another generation at a time it really needs it.

The film does not have the courage of the book, which felt no need to tie a nice pretty bow on everything. But it's fun enough for a good while (it's only 81 minutes long), and that's enough.

The story probably doesn’t stand up to heavy scrutiny, and at times the effort by star and director shows. But at least the effort is there.

With moments that harken to De Palma's "Carrie" (the claustrophobic toy box mimics Carrie's closet) and even "The Hunger," Greta is a mishmash of tropes masterfully compiled into a chilly and taut flick

A Little Help is worth watching, mostly for Fischer.

Costner works hard, and it shows. That's even more true of Leary. Garner's stuck in a thankless role. Only Langella seems to be having unencumbered fun.

First-time writer-director Peter Sattler keeps things glum and unsentimental, then tosses it all up in the air with a syrupy ending that derails everything. On another movie, the high-corn finale might have worked; here, it just feels patently false.

There's a lot of promise here, all over the film, and not just with Takahashi and Paige. Fans of "Fresh Off the Boat" know that Huang can be funny (though he didn't like it). It's nice to see him stretch out into more dramatic territory, even if he's not quite on as sure footing there. Certainly "Boogie" makes you want to see what's next.

That Freak Show is not the joyous gay party it aspires to be is a testament to squandered opportunities. For all the aces up its sleeve, Freak Show never quite lets its freak flag fly.

It’s stupid by design, but it’s not stupid enough. … It plays like an idea in search of a film. Desperately in search of, and never quite finding it.

The film . . . is good, not great; it never quite marries the skewering of New York elites with the true-crime feel of its grittier elements. But the performances keep it mostly on track.

It’s a fun movie, a nicely made Western in which bad guys get to be good guys sometimes. Maybe that should be enough, but you can’t help wanting more.

It just sort of chugs along in predictable fashion, bolstered by a couple of good performances here, thrown off-track every now and then by implausible or unearned developments there, but overall a decent effort.